


un niño rey

by laratoncita



Category: On My Block (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Gangs, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Canon, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22659577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laratoncita/pseuds/laratoncita
Summary: You've got to bend until you break.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 40





	un niño rey

**Author's Note:**

> continuation of a request i wrote late last year...luv giving oscar more depth than he deserves :~)
> 
> tw for slurs :(

A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort.

Gillian Flynn, from _Sharp Objects_

* * *

There are a lot of words for boys like you.

Words you’ve used, even. _Pinche joto_ , at Bananas when he acted up. _Don’t act like a fucking_ —

You’re hunched over in an alley, puking. _You’re fine_ , someone says. It’s a girl’s voice. _What they do to you?_

 _Nothing_ , you say. Think of his mouth and how good it felt. How tomorrow you’ll pretend it didn’t happen, and tonight you’ll try to deal with the terror that’s settled in your stomach lining, so strong you’re sick at the back of a party with some hyna who doesn’t even know you, it seems like. Half-shaved head, big hoops. Dark red lipstick on when you look up at her. She’s got a cigarette in one hand, wearing a bikini upside down under a mesh shirt. Shows off the massive cross tattoo low over her sternum—not Santos’ style, but close enough.

_What’s your name?_

_Spook_ y, you say, because that’s your name now. Fifteen and slinging. You’re practically a king.

 _You a lightweight, huh_ , she says, and her teeth are a white flash when she smiles. _Whatchu doing out here, huh? You a baby._

 _I’m a Santo_ , you say, and she rolls her eyes.

Says to you, _Go home. You need a ride?_

 _No_ , you say. _I can walk._

_Your buddies won’t take you?_

_They don’t need to_ , you say. Think of that mouth again. The way your own burns.

You think you’ve always been this way. Think you’ve always admired arms and thighs and mouths like this, didn’t matter who they were on. You’ve had girls thrown at you and you’ve had your fun, but you think you’d like a different kind, sometimes. Like tonight, someone’s friend from La Avenida kicking it with everyone and then the two of you in the corner of the basement, where no one could see you. His hands and his mouth and the way his breath felt against your skin.

You liked it. That’s unacceptable.

He’s been gone for years but your father’s voice echoes in your head anyway, even as you stumble away, don’t bother saying goodbye to no one—not your boys, not this girl with a cross on her chest. Your father’s calling you a fucking _maricón_. Telling you you ain’t shit, you’re a waste of Diaz. _Don’t cry_. You think of how around him, everyone seemed to shrink. You never want to be that kind of man—not the kind that makes you shrink, not the kind that does it anyway.

There ain’t space for that, not in you. Not in this life. You have to take care of yourself, of Cesar, of your mom, sometimes, when she starts to lose her shit like she does every few months. You got to survive. You don’t got the time to kiss boys in the dark while the party continues without you.

You’re not going to do it. Doesn’t matter if you want to.

* * *

It’s easy, and at the same time it’s not. WeHo’s not all that far—you’re not bad looking, women call you _charismatic_. Hynas flock to you like honey, and with men it’s no different, you find.

This is not a double life, because that would suggest you have something to lose if they come into contact. The words they call Bananas behind his back can’t touch you. You try not to say them, though. Something about them feels too personal, now that you know the inside of a man’s mouth, the way your hands feel on someone else’s broad shoulders.

Cuchillos tells you, sometimes, that you’re shaping up like your father.

 _You make me proud_ , he says. _Don’t know who the Santos would be without you_. When he smiles the word _viper_ comes to mind. Like he’s got you in his sights and won’t be letting you go anytime soon. _You got responsibilities,_ he says _. You’re a soldier_. _Don’t let it get to your head_.

You say thank you like he’s your father. Like your own isn’t in a cell you’ve only visited once. Like Cuchillos didn’t curse you in the first place. You’re never going to admit it out loud, though. What’s it matter if you think it? You’re loyal to the Santos, all iterations, the past and present leading you down a barrel to your future.

Eighteen years old and the whole world on your shoulders. You wake up, some days, wondering what it means that you did. Your only real responsibility, the one you care about most, is Cesar—for so long, too long, maybe, he’s been dependent on you like no one else has ever been. You break your back running things for Cuchillos but that’s necessity, isn’t it? That’s an inevitability.

Loving Cesar comes more naturally. Love like it might save you, taking care of this child who looks like your mother and calls you _Papi_ , half-asleep when you carry him to bed. Doesn’t matter the blood you wash from your hands; there will always be someone to take care of at home. Is this the kind of man he’ll grow into? You aren’t even done becoming one, you think. Here you are: at Cuchillos’ beck and call, gunmetal a familiar thing, Cesar’s smiling face waiting for you.

There isn’t space for this life inside you. _So young_ , your school counselor said once. _What do you want for yourself?_ As if you ever had a choice. The Santos cross etched into your skin long before it was put there by a tattoo gun, a different kind of pain to remind you of all the things you left behind, things that weren’t yours in the first place.

Your life in the moment is this: you take hynas home from Santos parties and brag about it to your boys the next day. You pretend not to hear the word _puto_ falling from their mouths. You get yours on men, later, in bathrooms or cars or the occasional futon-turned-bed.

It would be easier if you didn’t want it so badly. But you do. You do.

* * *

Four years away doesn’t break you but it comes very close. Too much time on your own. Not enough distraction. The first thing you do is see the beach—all that blue, all that space. You, like nothing in the sand, just a speck in this universe, a candle blown out with an errant breath.

Your brother’s grown into something unfamiliar; you see less of yourself in his face than ever, find it a blessing and a curse. Maybe there’s hope yet, or maybe you’re the one to snuff out his potential. The block is hot, summer not a reprieve but a promise that spring can always deliver on. Your first week home brings a funeral with it; the rest of the summer doesn’t shape up much differently. You smoke cigarettes on the porch with your boys, listen to Cesar move through the house like a ghost, and try to become the man you were before you got locked up.

 _What kind of man you wanna be_? You had a girlfriend ask you that, once. A girl you didn’t treat right, one who left before you could make a bigger fool out of her than you already did. When she did it didn’t mean much; women do that. Your mother did that. The teachers you knew before dropping out, they gave up on you, too. Maybe you give them good reason for it, but it doesn’t change the aftermath: you raising a kid that isn’t yours, you on your own, you slinging shit like it’s the norm, and in this neighborhood, it is.

The first man you fuck after getting out of jail doesn’t ask what you do, or where you’re from, or why you’re in the neighborhood. The tattoos don’t scare off everyone, and afterwards you drive home with shaking hands. Is this all it’s going to be? Hynas at parties, vatos you’ll never see again. You feel like a fucking _joto_ , hung up on the what-if of things, wanting something more than what the Santos have always offered you.

The quotidian things, the looking-over-shoulders like it’s a tick. You keep your back against walls and your eyes on every exit. When you walk to the corner store folks greet you. You’re the same man and a new one, Diaz as much a brand as the cross on your neck. One you couldn’t escape if you tried, so you didn’t.

At the grocery folks flinch when they see you. Except for once, towards the end of summer, before things change for the worse like they always do. A girl you remember from a drunken haze, perhaps. Something about this hyna familiar. Her face, the full mouth, the dark hair. She’s got a baby on her hip, maybe two years old.

Two years ago you were in the cellblock, still. Life has gone on without you, and yet there are things that haven’t changed. You, for one. This neighborhood. Nearly ten years ago, this hyna was wearing the same color lipstick while she watched you puke your guts out, every nerve on fire after kissing a boy for the first time.

She catches you looking. Doesn’t look away, makes you feel ashamed for it.

Says, bien brava, _Te conozco?_

 _Nah_ , you say. Stay looking at her. She’s in Adidas, got her baby in the same fit. You say, _I met you once._

She raises her eyebrows. The image of her, head-shaven, springs clearly to your mind.

When she says nothing, you say, _It was some party. You have a cross tattoo._

 _Not like yours_ , she says.

 _Not like mine_ , you agree. _You asked if I needed a ride home_.

 _Maybe_ , she says after a long minute of just staring at you. Long enough that you start to shift, just a little. Maybe this is how people feel when you look at them, too. She says, _I met a lotta kids like that, back in the day._ She gives you a more considering look, shifts her baby higher on her hip. _I don’t do that shit no more._

 _Good for you_ , you say. Your smile isn’t friendly. You’re not jealous, either.

In the end you go home empty-handed. In another life, you weren’t ever there at all.


End file.
